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Slugs and snails and puppy dog tails…..

The Anna Raccoon Archives

by Anna Raccoon on September 11, 2009

The ever more ridiculous Daily Mail is at it again this morning. I should stop reading it, but as a means to raise my testosterone levels and brace myself to engage in the aggressive world of blogging, it has no peer. Having consumed my daily dose, I am now suitably enraged.

Whilst covering themselves with a host of ‘it is reported’ and ‘according to an Australian newspaper’ – its not us folks, we are just repeating this for your titillation – they have confidently labelled the young girl in this picture as a hermaphrodite, and gone on to boast that she is as yet unaware of this.

I have been following this story for some time, and had resisted the temptation to blog on it, because I felt strongly that Miss Semenya’s medical condition was a matter for her and her Doctor, not for world wide publication; certainly not for publication because some Italian runner who came 6th in the same race demanded to have her femininity checked out – she is not running a country of 60 million people, as is the case for other people whose medical condition is a legitimate cause for concern, she was running in a poxy egg and spoon race, albeit without the egg and spoon.

I have not changed my mind on this, but I am going to address the Daily Mail’s criteria for ‘being a woman’.

‘Quoting a source’ – nervous old Mail again – says that Miss Semenya has no womb or ovaries. Leaving out the large number of women in the UK who are born without a womb or ovaries, there are also some 40,000 women a year who have them surgically removed for health reasons; it is estimated that one in five of all women will have their womb and ovaries removed at some point in their life.

Still quoting this mysterious source, the Mail says that she had testosterone levels three times that of a ‘normal’ woman (there is such a creature?).

“There is no established level of free testosterone below which a woman can be said to be deficient, nor any level to which a woman should be restored that determines that she is replete”.

With no ‘established level’ of free testosterone, thus some will have high levels of testosterone, and with many readers also being minus their womb and ovaries, it is difficult to see how the Mail can substantiate their claim that this makes Miss Semenya a ‘hermaphrodite’ – unless they are saying that a large proportion of their readers are too. Should make for an interesting class action.

The furore grows more ridiculous still. The International Association of Athletics Federation is expected to disqualify Miss Semenya (consistently referred to in the Mail article merely as ‘Semenya’ as they would a man) from future events and ‘advise an operation’.

What sort of operation, folks? The only one that springs to mind is a sex change operation; followed presumably by an application to change her gender on her birth certificate.

And when you have inflicted that indignity on this poor woman, and she still beats the other contestants hands down, will you be back measuring the length of her surgically grafted penis, and declaring that she is not ‘much of a man’ and demanding that she be prevented from running in future races as a man? Can we please check whether Linford Christie has undescended testicles? I think he’s faking.

I really do hope that Miss Semanya sues for libel over some of the slurs that have been cast upon her.

As for the Italian girl who came 6th with such poor grace, I want her checked for an excess of body hair, trailing in so long after Miss Semanya’s magnificent effort suggests to me that she might really be the man in disguise. It being a well known fact that men always hang back until the job is done.

Sue, I don’t even think it is a matter for the ‘authorities’ – if she has a valid female birth cetificate, that is the end of the matter, unless she herself had decided that she wished to undergo surgery to become a different sex and applied to change her certificate. How dare they ‘advise her to have an operation’, I cannot tell you how angry that has made me.

For crying out loud! What on earth does the media expect this horrific publicity will be doing to 18-year-old Miss Semenya?? It’s as if no-one knows of the day-to-day terrible self-hatred that all teenage girls go through as they grow up, critically analysing and detesting every single physical thing about themselves; they hate their ears, they hate their hair, they hate their elbows, they hate their nostrils etc. so if there was the least little different physical thing about Miss Semenya then she will have been the first to realise it and to have to learn to cope with it. But it would have been her very private worry and intensely important that it should remain at most a subject for discussion between her and her family.

Who knows – maybe she was encouraged to throw herself into her training, hoping one day to become a world-class athlete … oh wait, yes, that’s happened but instead of celebrating her success on the athletics track, the world’s media are now discussing her genitalia. I find it mortifying to think of that poor girl’s state of mind.

The way this whole affair has been aired in public is disgusting. Why did not the sports governing council settle this matter before the event, in private thus saving any heartache to this woman. I think the way it has been dealt with stinks and could destroy this poor woman.

I think you ladies misunderstand…this is nought to do with the sensitivities of a young woman. Granted Ms/Mr Semanya is a talented athlete…as a female athlete she will become the Usain Bolt of women’s athletics, as a male athlete he/she will be a good athlete and nothing more.

The issue is with the level of testosterone in her blood stream and whether this is likely to provide an unfair advantage, or not. I agree that the affair has not been handled in the best possible way but the South Africans are as much to blame by not being as upfront as they might.

I somehow think, that had Ms/Mr. Semenya been a Bulgarian, Romanian, or other Eastern bloc athlete, there would have been less of a hue and cry about the treatment she has received at the hands of the press. Just saying.

However, women are not as good at it as men so they get their own sports events. Something no feminists ever complain about.

To compete in a handicap, you have to play by the same rules as everyone else. In this case the rule is you have to be a women as laid down by their criteria. If she doesn’t make this criteria it is unfair that she competes.

Anyone that watches the sport knew something was up when improvements of that degree were made so rapidly. If people want fair race with the men, if they don’t at least stick to the rules.

I mean, if a slip of the men gave a man a female birth certificate then we would not allow him to compete against women. The document is not proof enough.

The BBC website is indulging in the same speculation. Their headline states that “Semenya tests as ‘inter gender’”. In the body of the article they quote Gordon Farquhar from BBC Sport saying “It’s likely that she has some hermaphroditic or inter-gender condition.” There is no actual evidence in the article to support this silly Farquhar’s diagnosis or to explain how it justifies the categorical assertion in the headline. (Update: they’ve now changed the headline to “SA threatens ‘war’ over Semenya” which is even more ludicrous).

The whole sorry matter has been handled from the start with a degree of insensitivity that should have been predicted given the highly competitive nature of international sport. Let’s hope that the IAAF learn from this and do a lot better next time. The Young Communist League of South Africa did her no favours by saying that the IAAF’s actions were racially motivated.

I concur with Ms. Smudd, the kernel of this is that someone has committed a massive and hurtful breach of her privacy and I hope they get hung, drawn and quartered and, sometime before the quartering, have to wait several weeks to have their gender checked out.

I must admit… I am of the opinion (even though she has been registered as a female), if she does have more testosterone than the average female (which presumably would make her more powerful physically), there is an element of doubt in the validity of her win and it’s unfair to the other competitors!

I am not disputing that she is a woman, whatever she feels “inside”, she IS… but we are talking sports here and she could have an unfair advantage.

“I must admit… I am of the opinion ……….. if she does have more testosterone than the average female (which presumably would make her more powerful physically)……. and it’s unfair to the other competitors!”

So it’s OK for a competitor to be born with more or stronger muscles, to give them an advantage?

Sue, you don’t dispute that she is a woman. If she is physically a woman it doesn’t matter if her testosterone level shows that she is closer to a bloke than a limp-wristed weed. She is a woman and a superb athlete, and Darwin would snog her.

Henry Crun says: ..”The issue is with the level of testosterone in her blood stream and whether this is likely to provide an unfair advantage, or not. .. …………. That is the issue for the IAAF. Global headlines announcing that a teenage girl is an hermaphrodite is another issue altogether.

By the way, as someone who suspects that she is experiencing rising testosterone levels, I can assure you I find male-pattern baldness and an enthusiastically bristling top lip neither fair nor in any way an advantage.